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Failure of Empire is the first comprehensive biography of the Roman emperor Valens and his troubled reign (a.d. 364-78). Valens will always be remembered for his spectacular defeat and death at the hands of the Goths in the Battle of Adrianople. This singular misfortune won him a front-row seat among history's great losers. By the time he was killed, his empire had been coming unglued for several years: the Goths had overrun the Balkans; Persians, Isaurians, and Saracens were threatening the east; the economy was in disarray; and pagans and Christians alike had been exiled, tortured, and executed in his religious persecutions. Valens had not, however, entirely failed in his job as emperor. He was an admirable administrator, a committed defender of the frontiers, and a ruler who showed remarkable sympathy for the needs of his subjects.

In lively style and rich detail, Lenski incorporates a broad range of new material, from archaeology to Gothic and Armenian sources, in a study that illuminates the social, cultural, religious, economic, administrative, and military complexities of Valens's realm. Failure of Empire offers a nuanced reconsideration of Valens the man and shows both how he applied his strengths to meet the expectations of his world and how he ultimately failed in his efforts to match limited capacities to limitless demands.

List of Illustrations AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsMaps

IntroductionChapter 1. The Pannonian EmperorsChapter 2. The Revolt of ProcopiusChapter 3. Valen's First Gothic WarChapter 4. Valens and the Eastern FrontierChapter 5. Religion under the ValentinianiChapter 6. Administration and Finance under Valentinian and ValensChapter 7. The Disaster at AdrianopleEpilogue

Appendix AAppendix BAppendix CAppendix DBibliographyIndex

Noel Lenski is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

“Splendid book . . . Lenski offers an extraordinarily suggestive description . . . information is presented without fanfare, but with style and much good sense.”—Clifford Ando American Historical Review

“This book will be a hard act to follow.”—W. H. C. Frend Cambridge Univeristy Pres

Outstanding Book Award for 2005, Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS)